5.  The applicant was born in 1977 and lives in Egypt.
6.  The applicant moved from Egypt to the TRNC on 14 February 2001 to study law at a university. He did not speak Turkish. With the help of another individual, Mr Yassir Faathelrahman Amer, the applicant rented a flat and started living in the TRNC. He also started working for Mr Amer in the latter's music business.
7.  In the evening of 29 May 2001 a businessman was found dead in his office in the TRNC. His throat had been slit and he had also sustained a number of injuries caused by blows to his head. On 30 May 2001 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of having killed the businessman and was placed in police custody, where he remained until he was charged with the offence of homicide and transferred to a prison on 22 June 2001. Mr Amer was also arrested in respect of the same offence and kept in police custody.
8.  According to the documents submitted by the parties, in the course of his detention in police custody the applicant was questioned by police officers on 3 June, 9 June and 22 June 2001 in the presence of an interpreter. On 22 June 2001 he was charged with the offence of homicide and his pre-trial detention in prison was ordered by a judge. According to three handwritten statements, no lawyer was present on the three occasions that the applicant was questioned by the police.
9.  The applicant claims that while in police custody he asked to be represented by a lawyer but police officers laughed at him and told him that “lawyers charge 50,000 US dollars, go and find 50,000 dollars”. Moreover, his requests to contact the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara were met with the angry refusals of a police chief.
10.  According to the applicant, during his questioning in police custody he had been ill-treated by both police officers and the interpreter. He also claims that he had subsequently been encouraged by police officers – through being given privileges such as adequate food, clothing and sanitary facilities – to make statements implicating his co-defendant Mr Amer in the killing. Approximately twenty statements had been prepared by the police and he had been forced to sign them to avoid further ill-treatment. As he did not speak Turkish, he had not been able to take cognisance of their contents. In any event, the statements had been handwritten and illegible. Two of these statements had subsequently been dated “3 June 2001” and “9 June 2001” (see paragraph 8 above) and used against him at trial.
11.  During a remand hearing held on 11 June 2001 a lawyer was present in the courtroom. According to the applicant, however, he had not been advised about the appointment of that lawyer and, in any event, he had not authorised that lawyer's representation of him. During remand hearings held on 31 May, 3 June and 19 June 2001 no lawyer was present. The applicant claims that during one of the remand hearings he had unsuccessfully repeated his request to be represented by a lawyer.
12.  Subsequently, both the applicant and Mr Amer were tried by the Lefkoşa Assize Court (“the trial court”). In the course of the trial the applicant denied the accuracy of the statements signed by him in police custody. On 4 March 2002 the applicant and Mr Amer were found guilty of the offence of manslaughter and thirteen other charges. They were sentenced to life imprisonment[1]. In convicting the applicant the trial court had regard, amongst other things, to the three statements made by the applicant to the police in June 2001.
13.  The applicant appealed against the judgment on 22 March 2002. In the course of the hearings held by the Court of Appeal, the applicant's legal representative argued that during the trial there had been a number of shortcomings and inconsistencies which had not been eliminated by the trial court and which had meant that the applicant's conviction was unsafe. The legal representative's arguments related, notably, to statements made by a number of police officers during the trial, according to which at 6.00 a.m. on 3 June 2001 the applicant had been taken to a number of locations by police officers in order to search for the objects used in the killing. Nevertheless, according to the handwritten statements referred to above (see paragraph 8), the applicant had supposedly been questioned between 6.15 a.m. and 7.10 a.m. on the same day in a police station some distance away. The legal representative pointed out that his client could not have been in two different places at the same time. He also argued the applicant had not known the dates on which he had been questioned, and that on 5 June 2001 the police officers had simply asked the applicant to sign a number of pre-prepared statements.
14.  The Court of Appeal adjourned the initial hearing four times and did not begin the examination of the case until 2005. It upheld the applicant's conviction on 2 March 2006.
15.  The applicant completed the service of his prison sentence on 19 June 2009 and was subsequently deported to Egypt.
16.  According to the applicant, the prison where he had served his sentence had been overcrowded, sanitary conditions had been inadequate and the quality of the food had been poor. On a number of occasions he had been detained in solitary confinement and had been beaten up by members of the security forces.